Simultaneous harq-ack feedback and uplink transmission without dynamic grant

ABSTRACT

An apparatus of a user equipment (UE) comprises one or more baseband processors to process payload size comprising a number of feedback bits for a hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) configuration received from a New Radio (NR) NodeB (gNB) for physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission without grant, and to determine a size of reserved resource elements (REs) and mapping pattern in accordance with the configured HARQ-ACK payload size, and to transmit uplink shared channel on PUSCH without grant which is rate-matched around the reserved REs. The UE alternatively comprises one or more baseband processors to process a downlink control information (DCI) grant received from a to schedule a PUSCH transmission, wherein the one or more baseband processors are configured for dynamic DCI grant overwriting to process a dynamic indication to interrupt the scheduled PUSCH transmission.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.16/274,953 filed Feb. 13, 2019, entitled SIMULTANEOUS HARQ-ACK FEEDBACKAND UPLINK TRANSMISSION WITHOUT DYNAMIC GRANT, which in turn claims thebenefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/631,317 (AA8950-Z) filedFeb. 15, 2018 and U.S. Provisional Application 62/710,317 file Feb. 16,2018. Said application Ser. No. 16/274,953, said Application No.62/631,317, and said Application No. 62/710,317 are hereby incorporatedherein by reference in their entireties.

BACKGROUND

Mobile communication systems have evolved significantly from early voicesystems to today's highly sophisticated integrated communicationplatforms. The next generation wireless communication system, FifthGeneration (5G) or new radio (NR) will provide access to information andsharing of data anywhere, anytime by various users and applications. NRis expected to be a unified network and/or system designed to meetvastly different and sometime conflicting performance dimensions andservices. Such diverse multi-dimensional requirements are driven bydifferent services and applications. In general, NR will evolve based onthe Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term EvolutionAdvanced (LTE-A) standard with additional potential new Radio AccessTechnologies (RATs) to enrich lives with better, simpler, and moreseamless wireless connectivity solutions. NR will enable everything tobe connected by wireless technology to deliver fast and rich content andservices.

The NR system use case families, enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) andultra-reliable and low latency communications (URLLC) have verydifferent requirements in terms of user plane latency and requiredcoverage levels. The key requirements allow for URLLC relate to U-planelatency and reliability. For URLLC the target for user plane latencyshould be 0.5 ms for UL, and 0.5 ms for DL. The target for reliabilityshould be 1-10⁻⁵ within 1 ms.

For NR, grant free uplink transmission or uplink transmission withoutdynamic grant is supported. In particular, two types of grant freeuplink transmission are specified. For Type 1 uplink transmissionwithout grant, uplink (UL) data transmission without grant is only basedon radio resource control (RRC) configuration or reconfiguration withoutany Layer 1 (L1) signaling. In particular, semi-static resource may beconfigured for one user equipment (UE) for grant free uplinktransmission, which includes time and frequency resource, modulation andcoding scheme, reference signal, etc. For Type 2 uplink transmissionwithout grant, UL data transmission without grant is based on both radioresource control (RRC) configuration and L1 signaling to activate and/ordeactivate UL data transmission, which is similar to semi-persistentscheduling (SPS) uplink transmission as defined in LTE. Further, inorder to achieve high reliability for URLLC, the UE may be configuredwith K repetitions for a transport block (TB) transmission for grantfree transmission.

For NR, uplink control information (UCI) can be multiplexed on physicaluplink shared channel (PUSCH) for both grant-based and grant-freetransmission. Further, for hybrid automatic repeatrequest—acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) feedback on a physical uplink sharedchannel (PUSCH) and for slot-based scheduling, for HARQ-ACK with morethan 2 bits, PUSCH is rate-matched, while for HARQ-ACK with up to 2bits, PUSCH is punctured.

For non-fallback downlink control information (DCI) carrying uplinkgrant, downlink assignment index (DAI) is included to indicate thenumber of HARQ-ACK feedback bits, which ensures the alignment betweenthe Fifth Generation NodeB (gNB) and the UE. For uplink transmissionwithout grant, the DAI information is not available, which may lead toambiguity on the number of HARQ-ACK feedback bits. In particular, whenthe UE miss-detects physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), the gNBand the UE may not have the same understanding on the number of HARQ-ACKfeedback bits. In this case, when HARQ-ACK feedback is multiplexed ongrant free PUSCH, gNB may not be able to decode the data correctly.Hence, certain mechanisms may be defined to ensure alignment between gNBand UE for HARQ-ACK on PUSCH without grant. As discussed herein, theterms “grant-free uplink transmission”, “uplink transmission withoutdynamic grant”, and “configured grant uplink transmission” areinterchangeable.

It is expected that NR systems will support simultaneous operation ofservices with different latency and reliability requirements. For thatpurpose, downlink (DL) interrupted/preempted transmission indication byDCI format 2_1 was specified which tells UE which resource elements didnot contain transmission to UE given that gNB changed schedulingdecision during an ongoing physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH)transmission.

There is, however, no special support of dynamic multiplexing in UL fromboth intra-UE and inter-UE perspective. That is, if more urgent trafficappears at the UE for transmission, it may either collide with its owntransmission or with another UE transmission within a cell unless somereserved resources are provisioned by the gNB.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIGURES

Claimed subject matter is particularly pointed out and distinctlyclaimed in the concluding portion of the specification. However, suchsubject matter may be understood by reference to the following detaileddescription when read with the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a diagram of reserved resource elements for HARQ-ACK on grantfree PUSCH transmission in accordance with one or more embodiments.

FIG. 2 is a diagram of a DM-RS AP index associated with the number ofHARQ-ACK bits in accordance with one or more embodiments.

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of a procedure to determine the DM-RS sequenceor AP index in accordance with one or more embodiments.

FIG. 4 is a diagram of the relationship of URLLC traffic characteristicsand multiplexing approaches in accordance with one or more embodiments.

FIG. 5 is a diagram of uplink interruption indication in accordance withone or more embodiments.

FIG. 6 is a diagram of uplink continuation indication in accordance withone or more embodiments.

FIG. 7 illustrates an architecture of a system of a network inaccordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 8 illustrates example components of a device in accordance withsome embodiments.

FIG. 9 illustrates example interfaces of baseband circuitry inaccordance with some embodiments.

It will be appreciated that for simplicity and/or clarity ofillustration, elements illustrated in the figures have not necessarilybeen drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elementsmay be exaggerated relative to other elements for clarity. Further, ifconsidered appropriate, reference numerals have been repeated among thefigures to indicate corresponding and/or analogous elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following detailed description, numerous specific details are setforth to provide a thorough understanding of claimed subject matter. Itwill, however, be understood by those skilled in the art that claimedsubject matter may be practiced without these specific details. In otherinstances, well-known methods, procedures, components and/or circuitshave not been described in detail.

In the following description and/or claims, the terms coupled and/orconnected, along with their derivatives, may be used. In particularembodiments, connected may be used to indicate that two or more elementsare in direct physical and/or electrical contact with each other.Coupled may mean that two or more elements are in direct physical and/orelectrical contact. However, coupled may also mean that two or moreelements may not be in direct contact with each other, but yet may stillcooperate and/or interact with each other. For example, “coupled” maymean that two or more elements do not contact each other but areindirectly joined together via another element or intermediate elements.Finally, the terms “on,” “overlying,” and “over” may be used in thefollowing description and claims. “On,” “overlying,” and “over” may beused to indicate that two or more elements are in direct physicalcontact with each other. It should be noted, however, that “over” mayalso mean that two or more elements are not in direct contact with eachother. For example, “over” may mean that one element is above anotherelement but not contact each other and may have another element orelements in between the two elements. Furthermore, the term “and/or” maymean “and”, it may mean “or”, it may mean “exclusive-or”, it may mean“one”, it may mean “some, but not all”, it may mean “neither”, and/or itmay mean “both”, although the scope of claimed subject matter is notlimited in this respect. In the following description and/or claims, theterms “comprise” and “include,” along with their derivatives, may beused and are intended as synonyms for each other.

Referring now to FIG. 1, a diagram of reserved resource elements forHARQ-ACK on grant free PUSCH transmission in accordance with one or moreembodiments will be discussed. FIG. 1 illustrates one example ofreserved REs 110 for hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgment(HARQ-ACK) on grant-free physical uplink control channel (PUSCH)transmission. Other REs 112 contain demodulation reference symbols(DM-RS) symbols. Note that in case when the number of HARQ-ACK bitsdetermined at UE is less than 2, the modulated HARQ-ACK symbols aremapped to a subset of the reserved REs 110. Locations of the reservedREs for HARQ-ACK are determined following the same rule defined formapping modulated HARQ-ACK symbols to REs. Further, the actuallytransmitted HARQ-ACK symbols are mapped within the reserved REs 110following the rule as defined for uplink control information (UCI) onPUSCH.

An uplink (UL) DAI may not be available for uplink transmission withoutgrant, the gNB and the UE may not have same understanding of the numberof HARQ-ACK feedback bits. In case when HARQ-ACK feedback bits aremultiplexed on PUSCH without grant, the gNB may not be able to decodethe data correctly. If PUSCH without grant is targeted for anultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) application, this wouldresult in undesirable latency. Hence, certain mechanisms may be definedto ensure alignment between gNB and UE for HARQ-ACK on PUSCH withoutgrant.

Embodiments of handling simultaneous HARQ-ACK feedback and uplinktransmission without dynamic grant are provided as follows. In oneembodiment, in case when physical uplink control channel (PUCCH)carrying HARQ-ACK feedback partially or fully collides with PUSCHwithout grant, the UE may only transmit one of PUCCH or PUSCH and dropanother in accordance with a priority rule. The priority rule may dependon the service type or transmission duration of physical channels orwhich physical channel has earlier starting symbol.

In one option, in case when HARQ-ACK feedback is targeted for URLLCapplication, UE would drop PUSCH and transmit PUCCH carrying HARQ-ACKfeedback only. Alternatively, in case when PUSCH without dynamic grantis targeted for URLLC application, UE may drop HARQ-ACK and onlytransmit PUSCH without dynamic grant.

In yet another option, the dropping rule or priority rule on whetherPUCCH carrying HARQ-ACK feedback or PUSCH without grant is dropped canbe configured by higher layers via radio resource control (RRC)signaling. This can be configured for both Type 1 and Type 2 grant free(GF) UL transmission, in UL-TWG-type1 or UL-TWG-type2 configurations,along with indication whether rate-matching or puncturing of HARQ-ACK onPUSCH is applied and/or the amount of reserved REs for HARQ-ACK on PUSCHwithout grant.

In another embodiment, for configured grant type 2, downlink controlinformation (DCI) carrying activation of UL grant free transmission mayinclude the UL DAI, which indicates the number of HARQ-ACK feedbackbits. Note this UL DAI may apply for the initial transmission and/orsubsequent transmission after initial transmission for Type 2 grant freeuplink transmission.

In another embodiment, for configured grant type 1 and/or type 2, whenHARQ-ACK feedback is multiplexed on PUSCH, some reserved resourceelements (REs) for HARQ-ACK transmission may be defined. Morespecifically, the amount of the reserved REs for HARQ-ACK feedback ongrant free PUSCH can be determined based on a payload size value, whichcan be predefined in the specification or configured by higher layersvia NR minimum system information (MSI), NR remaining minimum systeminformation (RMSI), NR other system information (OSI) or radio resourcecontrol (RRC) signaling.

Note that the reserved REs assuming configured number of HARQ-ACKfeedback bits may apply for all Type 1 and Type 2 uplink transmissionwithout grant. In another option, the reserved REs assuming configurednumber of HARQ-ACK feedback bits may apply for Type 1 uplinktransmission without grant and Type 2 uplink transmission without grantwhich is not for initial transmission.

Alternatively, the assumed payload size value can be a combination ofthe value indicated by DAI, counter DAI and total DAI, in DCI carryingDL assignment in case of dynamic HARQ-ACK codebook or the value derivedfrom semi-static HARQ-ACK codebook, and a predefined value, for example2 or 4.

Further, the amount of resource allocated for reserved REs for HARQ-ACKtransmission on grant free PUSCH can be determined based on theconfigured or indicated beta-offset. Note that beta offset indicationmay be included in the DCI for activation of Type 2 grant free uplinktransmission. The calculation of the amount of resource allocation forthe reserved REs for HARQ-ACK can follow the formula defined for UCI onPUSCH.

In addition, locations of the reserved REs for HARQ-ACK are determinedfollowing the same rule defined for mapping modulated HARQ-ACK symbolsto REs. Further, the actually transmitted HARQ-ACK symbols are mappedwithin the reserved REs following the rule as defined for UCI on PUSCH.

In another embodiment, regardless of the number of HARQ-ACK feedbackbits, either puncturing or rate-matching is applied for the transmissionof HARQ-ACK feedback on grant-free PUSCH. Whether to employ puncturingor rate-matching for HARQ-ACK feedback on grant-free PUSCH can bepredefined in the specification or configured by higher layers via MSI,RMSI, OSI or RRC signaling. In an exemplary design, rate-matching can bealways applied in case of carrying HARQ-ACK on grant-free PUSCH suchthat the PUSCH data, that is uplink shared channel (UL-SCH), is mappedaround the punctured REs for HARQ-ACK, instead of puncturing the UL-SCH.This enables to avoid that the valid UL-SCH symbols are punctured andlost, especially, in cases that a very small size of UL data, forexample transmission control protocol (TCP) ACK or Voice over InternetProtocol (VoIP) silence indicator, is carried on the PUSCH along withpadding bits or beta-offset for the HARQ-ACK is large such as to consumea significant amount of REs where a small size of valid UL-SCH data isto be mapped on otherwise. Note that in case when the number of HARQ-ACKbits determined at UE is less than 2, the modulated HARQ-ACK symbols aremapped to a subset of the reserved REs.

Referring now to FIG. 2, a diagram of a DM-RS AP index associated withthe number of HARQ-ACK bits in accordance with one or more embodimentswill be discussed. In the embodiment shown in FIG. 2, a DM-RS sequenceindex or an antenna port (AP) index used for PUSCH transmission withoutgrant is associated with the determined number of HARQ-ACK feedbackbits. In particular, the UE can be configured with K number (K>1) ofDM-RS sequences 210 or APs, where K is predefined in the specification.After the UE determines the number of HARQ-ACK feedback bits, UE selectsone of the DM-RS sequences or APs from the configured K DM-RS sequencesor APs for DM-RS transmission in accordance with the determined numberof HARQ-ACK feedback bits.

In addition, the association rule between the DM-RS sequence index or APindex and the number of HARQ-ACK bits can be predefined in thespecification or configured by higher layers via MSI, RMSI, OSI or RRCsignaling. In one option, one or more thresholds for HARQ-ACK feedbackbits can be defined to determine the DM-RS sequence 210 or AP index. Therule to determine the DM-RS sequence or AP index is given as follows.

$\quad\left\{ \begin{matrix}{0 < N_{{HARQ} - {ACK}} \leq N_{{thres},0}} & {{DM}\text{-}{RS}\mspace{11mu} {AP}\mspace{11mu} 0} \\{N_{{thres},0} < N_{{HARQ} - {ACK}} \leq N_{{thres},1}} & {{DM}\text{-}{RS}\mspace{11mu} {AP}\mspace{11mu} 1} \\\cdots & \cdots \\{N_{{thres},{K - 2}} < N_{{HARQ} - {ACK}}} & {{DM}\text{-}{RS}\mspace{11mu} {AP}\mspace{11mu} K\text{-}1}\end{matrix} \right.$

Where N_(HARQ-ACK) is the number of HARQ-ACK feedback bits; N_(thres,k),(k=0, . . . , K−2) are the thresholds, which can be predefined in thespecification or configured by higher layers via MSI, RMSI, OSI or RRCsignaling.

In one example, the UE is configured with two DM-RS APs. DM-RS AP 0 isselected when the number of HARQ-ACK bits is less than 3, while DM-RS AP1 is selected when the number of HARQ-ACK bits is greater than 2.

In yet another option, the following rule can be used to determine theDM-RS sequence or AP index:

$\quad\left\{ \begin{matrix}{{N_{{HARQ} - {ACK}}{{mod}K}} = 0} & {{DM}\text{-}{RS}\mspace{11mu} {AP}\mspace{11mu} 0} \\{{N_{{HARQ} - {ACK}}{{mod}K}} = 1} & {{DM}\text{-}{RS}\mspace{11mu} {AP}\mspace{11mu} 1} \\\cdots & \cdots \\{{N_{{HARQ} - {ACK}}{{mod}K}} = {K - 1}} & {{DM}\text{-}{RS}\mspace{11mu} {AP}\mspace{11mu} K\text{-}1}\end{matrix} \right.$

In one example, the UE is configured with two DM-RS APs. DM-RS AP0 isselected for even number of HARQ-ACK bits, while DM-RS AP 1 is selectedfor odd number of HARQ-ACK bits. The embodiment shown in FIG. 2illustrates one example of DM-RS AP index associated with the number ofHARQ-ACK bits. In particular, DM-RS AP 0 shown at 212 is selected whenthe number of HARQ-ACK bits is less than 3, while DM-RS AP 1 is selectedwhen the number of HARQ-ACK bits is greater than 2.

Referring now to FIG. 3, a flow diagram of a procedure to determine theDM-RS sequence or AP index in accordance with one or more embodimentswill be discussed. In particular, FIG. 3 shows the procedure 300 todetermine the DM-RS sequence or AP index for HARQ-ACK feedback on PUSCHwithout grant. At block 310, the UE determines the number of HARQ-ACKbits. At block 312, the UE selects on of the configured DM-RS sequenceor AP indexes based on the determined number of HARQ-ACK bits and apredefined rule. At block 314, the UE transmits the selected DM-RSsequence or AP index for HARQ-ACK feedback on PUSCH without grant. Itshould be noted that the selected APs may apply for the APs for bothDM-RS and PUSCH transmission.

In some embodiments discussed herein, the issue of dynamic multiplexingof UL transmissions with different latency and reliability requirementswithin a UE and among different UEs is addressed. Such embodiments aredirected to intra-UE multiplexing including dynamic DCI over-writing,and inter-UE multiplexing including dynamic scheduling enhancements,interrupted transmission indication, and continuation transmissionindication.

For intra-UE multiplexing embodiments, different services can bemultiplexed within one UE. If services with different latency andreliability requirements are active at the UE simultaneously, thencollisions are possible due to different timescales of operation. Forexample, a grant-free transmission or grant-based transmission of URLLCtraffic may be triggered at a UE during an ongoing eMBB transmission.

It is natural to assume that UE can prioritize transmission of theservice which has higher priority. In case of grant-based access, thegrant which is associated with the higher priority service should beassumed to take precedence of the lower priority schedules.

Although there is a media access control (MAC) layer procedure forlogical channel filtering to be mapped to a given PUSCH, handling ofsuch collisions is expected to be performed at L1. For that purpose,some rules for PUSCH dropping in case of overlap should be defined.

Implicit prioritization criteria may be provided to address thesituation wherein there is no notion of PUSCH or DCI grant priorities.In one embodiment, prioritization by physical downlink control channel(PDCCH) monitoring instance, for example the. last symbol of PDCCH whereDCI was detected, or duration of transmission indicated by correspondingPDCCHs carrying DCI may be defined. In this case, the overlapping PUSCHscheduled by PDCCH detected later than another grant is expected to beprioritized since the gNB decision is assumed to take such collisioninto account.

If an overlap happens and collision is handled by the proposed aboveprioritization rule, it is expected that the UE drops at least the lowerpriority PUSCH part overlapped in time domain with the higher priorityPUSCH, that is no power sharing is allowed in case of non-overlapping infrequency domain allocations. If the UE detects preempting DCI whichschedules PUSCH that starts before or together with the previouslyscheduled PUSCH it is expected that the previously scheduled PUSCH iscancelled. If the preempting DCI schedules the same HARQ process oranother HARQ process and if PUSCH repetitions are configured, therepetitions are also dropped. Alternatively, if DCI schedules anotherHARQ process the repetitions may not be dropped if do not experience anyother overlap in time domain. If the UE detects preempting DCI whichschedules the higher priority PUSCH during an ongoing PUSCH transmissionit should not be expected that UE continues transmission of the lowerpriority PUSCH after dropping the overlapped part.

Alternatively, a UE only drops overlapping in time symbol of thepreviously scheduled PUSCH. In this case, a minimum granularity of suchinterruption may be defined. For example, a granularity of X symbolsinterruption intervals could be defined in order to accommodate UEtransient times, for example X=2 symbols could be defined. The minimumgranularity may also be a function of subcarrier spacing wherein thehigher subcarrier spacings may require more symbol than the lowersubcarriers spacings. It should be noted that dropping here may eitherbe referred to puncturing or rate-matching. A baseline assumption ispuncturing which does not affect UE baseband processing. With large K2values, the time between grant reception and PUSCH transmission,however, it may be possible that the UE may perform rate-matchinginstead of puncturing. The rate-matching may also be subject to UEprocessing capabilities and may be semi-statically configurable byUE-specific radio resource control (RRC) signaling.

For this approach, a UE is not expected to receive two DCI grantsscheduling overlapping PUSCH in the same time instance, that is in thesame control resource set (CORESET) monitoring occasion or in differentCORESETs with overlapping monitoring occasions in time-domain with thesame last symbol of the CORESETs. Furthermore, similar rules could bedefined for other UE transmissions, that is uplink control information(UCI), physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), physical random accesschannel (PRACH) and sounding reference signal (SRS). In an embodiment,it may be specified that a dynamically triggered UE transmissionindicating transmission on resources that overlap in time with anotherUL transmission has higher priority than the previously dynamically orsemi-statically triggered transmission regardless whether this is aPUSCH scheduled by a dynamic grant or UCI/PUCCH, PRACH or SRS scheduledby dynamic downlink control information (DCI).

The discussed rules may or may not be applied by a UE subject to itscapabilities and RRC configuration. In one embodiment, a UE may besemi-statically configured, subject to capabilities, by a UE-specificRRC signaling with a higher layer parameter which enables or disablesthe mechanism of over-writing one dynamic scheduling by another dynamicscheduling of UL transmission.

Referring now to FIG. 4, a diagram of the relationship of URLLC trafficcharacteristics and multiplexing approaches in accordance with one ormore embodiments will be discussed. For inter-UE multiplexing,mechanisms of an uplink (UL) ultra-reliable low-latency communication(URLLC) and enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) multiplexing for differentUEs in a cell are provided. In general, the UL URLLC and eMBBtransmissions can be multiplexed in time or frequency using the same ordifferent numerologies at the same carrier. Depending on URLLC serviceload and traffic characteristics, the multiplexing approach could beeither semi-static multiplexing 410 or dynamic multiplexing 412, or acombination thereof as shown in FIG. 4. In case of the high URLLCtraffic loading and/or regular traffic pattern for URLLC as shown at414, the semi-static multiplexing strategy may properly work withoutcapacity penalty. The semi-static multiplexing 410 approach may berealized by gNB implementation with restrictive scheduling of eMBB UEsoutside of URLLC resources. When the traffic is sporadic/irregular andhas low rate, however, as shown at 416, reservation of resources forURLLC reception may lead to substantial eMBB capacity penalty. Forexample, if URLLC service sporadically appears in average once in asecond and consumes 1 ms and 10% of bandwidth, the overall reservedspectrum resource usage will be about 0.1% with 9.999% of overallspectrum wasted. In this case, mechanisms of dynamic multiplexing 412would provide substantial eMBB performance gains. Embodiments that canserve the dynamic multiplexing purpose include dynamic scheduling byshort transmissions of both eMBB and URLLC, and UL transmissioninterruption or continuation indication.

For dynamic scheduling, the problem of multiplexing may be completelyresolved by dynamic scheduling if eMBB is also scheduled by shorttransmissions, for example mini-slots. Such scheduling, however, implieshigher monitoring rate by a UE if regular approach of dynamic grant isused, that is every transmission time interval (TTI) is scheduled by aDCI grant carried by PDCCH. This approach also has high overhead forcontrol and DM-RS as well as MAC layer headers. Moreover, such UEtransmission would have limited coverage or transmission block size(TBS) restrictions due to short transmissions and correspondingly loweremitted energy.

For a more efficient dynamic scheduling of short eMBB transmissions,techniques to reduce system overhead and PDCCH monitoring burden at a UEmay be further studied. One example is to share DM-RS between mini-slotsin case of PUSCH mapping Type B which are currently present at least inthe first symbol of each PUSCH transmission Type B. In another approach,PUSCH scheduling may be organized by two types of DCI: first regular oneis to trigger multiple short transmissions while the second one is toschedule PUSCH parts during the slots. The second DCI may not even carryany transmission parameters rather to allow UE to replicate the previousscheduling grant.

In one embodiment, a UE may be scheduled by a two-phase DCI. First, a UEdetects regular PDCCH with configured, for example slot-level,monitoring periodicity for PUSCH scheduling, wherein a first PDCCH maybe scrambled by a UE specific radio network temporary identifier (RNTI),for example cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI) or a groupcommon RNTI, which can be predefined in the specification or configuredby higher layers. This first PDCCH schedules the PUSCH with a limitedtime-duration, that is, PUSCH with a relatively small number of symbols.

Second, if the UE detected the first PDCCH it can trigger monitoring ofanother “secondary” DCI format with the following properties. Thesecondary DCI format may have smaller size where most of the dynamicscheduling parameters are assumed as same as those indicated by theprimary DCI. CORESET and monitoring periodicity for the secondary DCImay be configured separately. The decoding candidate for monitoring ofthis DCI is directly derived from the candidate where the primary DCIwas detected, or this DCI is monitored by substantially reduced numberof candidates. Common search space or UE specific search space may beused for the secondary DCI. The secondary DCI format may be scrambled bygroup-common RNTI, which may be configured by higher layers. The abovedescribed example procedure does not achieve lower latency for eMBBsince PUSCH is triggered by a regular PDCCH, but it aims to minimizeoverhead of scheduling UE by short transmissions after the triggering.

Referring now to FIG. 5, a diagram of uplink interruption indication inaccordance with one or more embodiments will be discussed. Additionalbenefits could be observed if long transmissions may be interrupted orstopped to yield to ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC)services. Two general types of such indication include interruptionindication (U-INT) and continuation indication (U-CON).

For interruption indication, the following potential candidates forrealizing UL interruption indication (U-INT) are considered. A firstoption is directed to Reuse of DL interruption/preemption indicationformat. In this embodiment, the already defined DCI format 2_1 may bereused but scrambled with different RNTI. It can at least besize-matched to the DCI format 2_1 monitored by INT-RNTI in order tosave decoding candidates if monitoring occasions overlap. Content of theDCI for U-INT may be similar, that is bitmap pointing to a ReferenceUplink Resource (RUR). In case of UL, the granularity in frequencydomain may need to be much finer than in DL where whole BWP or half BWPis used since UL transmissions are subject to power limitation andtherefore are likely to be narrower than in DL.

The reference UL resource needs to be defined for future time instancerelative to the time instance of DCI detection. It may not even have“right” boundary, that is interruption is active until anotherscheduling grant received corresponding to the frequency domainresources indicated by the RUR. The time offset between DCI detectionand RUR should at least accommodate application time which may betentatively assumed to be limited by N2 value similar to slot formatindicator (SFI) application time. The application time may also beconfigured semi-statically by RRC signaling, which may depend on UEcapability. Note that in time domain, DL symbols and/or flexible symbolsconfigured by semi-static DL/UL assignment may not be included in theRUR when using bitmap to indicate the pre-emption resource in time. Inanother example, only DL symbols configured by semi-staticUL-DL-configuration or symbols indicated already for DL transmissions,via dynamic scheduling, may be assumed as not included in the RUR whenusing bitmap to indicate the interrupted resources in time domain.

Frequency domain span of RUR should at least cover UE active uplink BWP.However, since the pair of DL+UL bandwidth parts is UE-specificallyconfigured, although UEs may monitor the same DL bandwidth part (BWP),they may have different UL bandwidth parts. In that sense, U-INT maybetter utilize similar approach as DL interruption indication for thecase of cross-carrier scheduling. For example, the group common DCI forU-INT may have N identical signaled parts wherein each UE is configuredwith an index of the part to read in the DCI. This mechanism may begeneralized to cross-carrier and cross-BWP scheduling. Further, infrequency domain, the granularity indicated by INT indication can bepredefined in the specification, or configured by higher layers or fixedas a function of UL BWP. In one example, this can be UL BWP/K, wherein Kis a fixed value. Alternatively, K can be defined as a function of theUL BWP size, for instance, it could be a function of the configured RBGsize for the UL BWP or it could be a function of the RBG sizecorresponding to RBG Configuration 2 table. The latter may be helpful ifRBG Configuration 2 table is specified mainly considering URLLC usecases.

U-INT indication may be combined with DL interruption indication DCI. Inthis case, UE may monitor the same INT-RNTI with a given size but beconfigured with a mapping of DCI bits to particular DL carriers and ULbandwidth parts plus carriers. As a further extension, INT indicationmay be configured with different monitoring occasions, e.g. differentoffsets/periodicities to indicate whether D-INT and U-INT is carried byDCI format 2_1.

In another option, a single DCI format can be used to carry both D-INTand U-INT indication. More specifically, the first part of DCI field maybe used to carry D-INT and the second of DCI field may be used to carryU-INT. The size of the DCI format may be configured by higher layers viaNR remaining minimum system information (RMSI), NR other systeminformation (OSI) or radio resource control (RRC) signaling. Inaddition, this DCI format may be size-matched with other DCI formats.

A second option is directed to slot format indicator (SFI) basedinterruption. Dynamic slot-format indication (SFI) carried by DCI format2_0 may be used to cancel the already scheduled dynamic or semi-staticUL transmission. For that purpose, the symbols being interrupted can bemarked as unknown and UE could be configured to cancel all ULtransmissions which overlap with these symbols. However, SFI is not muchsuitable for such purposes and was designed mainly to provide dynamicchange of transmission directions. In that sense, SFI may only be usedas a complimentary solution to a dedicated indication.

A third option is directed to multiplexing and/or piggybacking on DLresources. If the UE operates in both DL and UL simultaneously, U-INTcan be signaled as part of PDSCH or PDCCH for this UE. Such mechanismmay be considered similar to the UL piggybacking of UCI on PUSCH. Oneexample is to multiplex new sequence or use DM-RS or PT-RS/T-RS/CSI-RS.In particular, a relatively sparse-in-frequency domain CSI-RSconfiguration may be configured for a UE or a group of UEs. Eitherpresence detection or sequence detection may be used to identify ULinterruption.

A fourth option is directed to UE-specific DCI signaling. A similarmechanism as discussed for intra-UE multiplexing can be used. For thatpurpose, a gNB may signal a dynamic grant with invalid resourceallocation that may be interpreted by a UE as “no transmission”scheduling, that is an interruption. At least frequency allocation maybe set to a reserved value while the time allocation may still indicatewhich symbols of PUSCH should be stopped. In a generalized case, thiscould be even just a valid DCI which changes UE allocation so that itdoes not interfere another transmission.

In another option, multi-mini-slot or multi-slot based UL transmissionwith and/or without grant can be used for PUSCH transmission. Inparticular, a first DCI to trigger the PUSCH spanning multiplemini-slots or slots may be employed, which can help to reduce signalingoverhead. Further, a second DCI or other methods as mentioned above tostop or interrupt multi-mini-slot or multi-slot based UL transmissioncan be applied.

The U-INT application timeline is illustrated in FIG. 5. FIG. 5 on thetop part 500 shows the case when the UE cancels the entire remainingpart 512 of a PUSCH transmission 510 based on an interruption indication514. FIG. 5 on the bottom part 502 shows the case when the UE cancelsonly the transmission on the symbols 516 indicated via the interruptionindication. Such cancellation can be defined based on puncturing orrate-matching to avoid the indicated resources. Here, “puncturing”implies that the modulated symbols are mapped to the resource elementsbut not transmitted. Note that although the embodiments as hereindescribed are directed to PUSCH transmission, however they areapplicable for other UL physical channels and signals as well, and thescope of the claimed subject matter is not limited in this respect.

In general, for UL transmissions when using repetitions (PUSCH, PUCCH,SRS, or PRACH), the UE may only cancel transmission on the particularrepetitions that correspond to resources within the RUR that areindicated as being interrupted, while the other repetitions may still betransmitted.

In an embodiment, the interruption indication may not apply to PUCCHtransmissions. In another embodiment, the interruption indication maynot apply to PUCCH transmissions carrying HARQ-ACK feedback. Thus, evenif such resources fall within an RUR and the U-INT indicates notransmission on such resources, a UE expected to transmit HARQ-ACK onPUCCH may continue its transmission as originally indicated. In anotherembodiment, in case a UE is expected to transmit HARQ-ACK on PUSCH dueto overlap of PUCCH and PUSCH resources in time domain, and the PUSCHtransmission is interrupted or cancelled, the UE transmits the HARQ-ACKfeedback instead on the PUCCH resources indicated via the DCI schedulingthe corresponding PDSCH.

Referring now to FIG. 6, a diagram of uplink continuation indication inaccordance with one or more embodiments will be discussed. Thecontinuation indication (U-CON) approach is very similar to theinterruption indication approach as shown in FIG. 5 but delivers to UEsinformation that the scheduled transmission must or must not becontinued as planned. In this approach, a continuation indication 610should be received for the UE to continue with a PUSCH, otherwise theremaining portion 512 may be cancelled in the absence 612 of one or morecontinuation indications as shown in the top portion 600 of FIG. 6.Alternatively, as shown in the bottom portion 602 of FIG. 6, and absence612 of one or more continuation indications 610 can result in one orcancellation of one or more symbols 516 of the PUSCH. This approach maybe viewed as a part of dynamic scheduling, but without full-blown DCIused to schedule every part of PUSCH. The UE may be configured tomonitor for U-CON according to a configured monitoring periodicitywithin a time window that spans the originally intended, dynamically orsemi-statically scheduled, UL transmission. Further, such monitoring maybe activated only if the complete UL transmission spans a number ofsymbols exceed some pre-defined threshold in absolute time or number ofsymbols corresponding to a given numerology). A utility of suchindication is that in case of missed detection it cannot lead to URLLCservice degradation, while missing interruption indication may lead tostrong interference to URLLC transmissions. Comparing to U-INT, U-CONtypically consumes more monitoring occasions but smaller resources foreach indication since it should not be delivered with ultra-reliability.Continuation indication transport options are identical to the oneslisted for U-INT, that is it can either be based on DL interruptedtransmission indication format, or other group-common or UE-specificindication.

It should be noted that the continuation and interruption indicationsmay be applied in different situations. For example, U-INT is mostbeneficial when URLLC service is rare and therefore, there will be nooverhead caused by U-INT when no URLLC service is active. However, whenURLLC traffic is moderate but still sporadic, U-CON may provide near thesame signaling overhead but ensuring URLLC service is protected even ifthe indication is missed by UEs.

In another embodiment, U-INT/U-CON could be applicable only for ULtransmissions with repetitions and not applicable to UL transmissionswithout any repetitions or they could be applicable only for ULtransmissions spanning a certain number of minimum duration or number ofsymbols for a given subcarrier spacing. Further, for the case of U-INT,a UE is expected to monitor for U-INT only when configured for PUSCHtransmissions with aggregation factor >1 for PUSCH dynamically scheduledor with configured grant transmissions.

FIG. 7 illustrates an architecture of a system 700 of a network inaccordance with some embodiments. The system 700 is shown to include auser equipment (UE) 701 and a UE 702. The UEs 701 and 702 areillustrated as smartphones (e.g., handheld touchscreen mobile computingdevices connectable to one or more cellular networks) but may alsocomprise any mobile or non-mobile computing device, such as PersonalData Assistants (PDAs), pagers, laptop computers, desktop computers,wireless handsets, or any computing device including a wirelesscommunications interface.

In some embodiments, any of the UEs 701 and 702 can comprise an Internetof Things (IoT) UE, which can comprise a network access layer designedfor low-power IoT applications utilizing short-lived UE connections. AnIoT UE can utilize technologies such as machine-to-machine (M2M) ormachine-type communications (MTC) for exchanging data with an MTC serveror device via a public land mobile network (PLMN), Proximity-BasedService (ProSe) or device-to-device (D2D) communication, sensornetworks, or IoT networks. The M2M or MTC exchange of data may be amachine-initiated exchange of data. An IoT network describesinterconnecting IoT UEs, which may include uniquely identifiableembedded computing devices (within the Internet infrastructure), withshort-lived connections. The IoT UEs may execute background applications(e.g., keep-alive messages, status updates, etc.) to facilitate theconnections of the IoT network.

The UEs 701 and 702 may be configured to connect, e.g., communicativelycouple, with a radio access network (RAN) 710—the RAN 710 may be, forexample, an Evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS)Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), a NextGen RAN (NG RAN), orsome other type of RAN. The UEs 701 and 702 utilize connections 703 and704, respectively, each of which comprises a physical communicationsinterface or layer (discussed in further detail below); in this example,the connections 703 and 704 are illustrated as an air interface toenable communicative coupling, and can be consistent with cellularcommunications protocols, such as a Global System for MobileCommunications (GSM) protocol, a code-division multiple access (CDMA)network protocol, a Push-to-Talk (PTT) protocol, a PTT over Cellular(POC) protocol, a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS)protocol, a 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) protocol, a fifth generation(5G) protocol, a New Radio (NR) protocol, and the like.

In this embodiment, the UEs 701 and 702 may further directly exchangecommunication data via a ProSe interface 705. The ProSe interface 705may alternatively be referred to as a sidelink interface comprising oneor more logical channels, including but not limited to a PhysicalSidelink Control Channel (PSCCH), a Physical Sidelink Shared Channel(PSSCH), a Physical Sidelink Discovery Channel (PSDCH), and a PhysicalSidelink Broadcast Channel (PSBCH).

The UE 702 is shown to be configured to access an access point (AP) 706via connection 707. The connection 707 can comprise a local wirelessconnection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11protocol, wherein the AP 706 would comprise a wireless fidelity (WiFi®)router. In this example, the AP 706 is shown to be connected to theInternet without connecting to the core network of the wireless system(described in further detail below).

The RAN 710 can include one or more access nodes that enable theconnections 703 and 704. These access nodes (ANs) can be referred to asbase stations (BSs), NodeBs, evolved NodeBs (eNBs), next GenerationNodeBs (gNB), RAN nodes, and so forth, and can comprise ground stations(e.g., terrestrial access points) or satellite stations providingcoverage within a geographic area (e.g., a cell). The RAN 710 mayinclude one or more RAN nodes for providing macrocells, e.g., macro RANnode 711, and one or more RAN nodes for providing femtocells orpicocells (e.g., cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller usercapacity, or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells), e.g., low power(LP) RAN node 712.

Any of the RAN nodes 711 and 712 can terminate the air interfaceprotocol and can be the first point of contact for the UEs 701 and 702.In some embodiments, any of the RAN nodes 711 and 712 can fulfillvarious logical functions for the RAN 710 including, but not limited to,radio network controller (RNC) functions such as radio bearermanagement, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management anddata packet scheduling, and mobility management.

In accordance with some embodiments, the UEs 701 and 702 can beconfigured to communicate using Orthogonal Frequency-DivisionMultiplexing (OFDM) communication signals with each other or with any ofthe RAN nodes 711 and 712 over a multicarrier communication channel inaccordance various communication techniques, such as, but not limitedto, an Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA)communication technique (e.g., for downlink communications) or a SingleCarrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) communicationtechnique (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communications),although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.The OFDM signals can comprise a plurality of orthogonal subcarriers.

In some embodiments, a downlink resource grid can be used for downlinktransmissions from any of the RAN nodes 711 and 712 to the UEs 701 and702, while uplink transmissions can utilize similar techniques. The gridcan be a time-frequency grid, called a resource grid or time-frequencyresource grid, which is the physical resource in the downlink in eachslot. Such a time-frequency plane representation is a common practicefor OFDM systems, which makes it intuitive for radio resourceallocation. Each column and each row of the resource grid corresponds toone OFDM symbol and one OFDM subcarrier, respectively. The duration ofthe resource grid in the time domain corresponds to one slot in a radioframe. The smallest time-frequency unit in a resource grid is denoted asa resource element. Each resource grid comprises a number of resourceblocks, which describe the mapping of certain physical channels toresource elements. Each resource block comprises a collection ofresource elements; in the frequency domain, this may represent thesmallest quantity of resources that currently can be allocated. Thereare several different physical downlink channels that are conveyed usingsuch resource blocks.

The physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) may carry user data andhigher-layer signaling to the UEs 701 and 702. The physical downlinkcontrol channel (PDCCH) may carry information about the transport formatand resource allocations related to the PDSCH channel, among otherthings. It may also inform the UEs 701 and 702 about the transportformat, resource allocation, and H-ARQ (Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request)information related to the uplink shared channel. Typically, downlinkscheduling (assigning control and shared channel resource blocks to theUE 102 within a cell) may be performed at any of the RAN nodes 711 and712 based on channel quality information fed back from any of the UEs701 and 702. The downlink resource assignment information may be sent onthe PDCCH used for (e.g., assigned to) each of the UEs 701 and 702.

The PDCCH may use control channel elements (CCEs) to convey the controlinformation. Before being mapped to resource elements, the PDCCHcomplex-valued symbols may first be organized into quadruplets, whichmay then be permuted using a sub-block interleaver for rate matching.Each PDCCH may be transmitted using one or more of these CCEs, whereeach CCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elementsknown as resource element groups (REGs). Four Quadrature Phase ShiftKeying (QPSK) symbols may be mapped to each REG. The PDCCH can betransmitted using one or more CCEs, depending on the size of thedownlink control information (DCI) and the channel condition. There canbe four or more different PDCCH formats defined in LTE with differentnumbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation level, L=1, 2, 4, or 8).

Some embodiments may use concepts for resource allocation for controlchannel information that are an extension of the above-describedconcepts. For example, some embodiments may utilize an enhanced physicaldownlink control channel (EPDCCH) that uses PDSCH resources for controlinformation transmission. The EPDCCH may be transmitted using one ormore enhanced the control channel elements (ECCEs). Similar to above,each ECCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elementsknown as an enhanced resource element groups (EREGs). An ECCE may haveother numbers of EREGs in some situations.

The RAN 710 is shown to be communicatively coupled to a core network(CN) 720—via an S1 interface 713. In embodiments, the CN 720 may be anevolved packet core (EPC) network, a NextGen Packet Core (NPC) network,or some other type of CN. In this embodiment the S1 interface 713 issplit into two parts: the S1-U interface 714, which carries traffic databetween the RAN nodes 711 and 712 and the serving gateway (S-GW) 722,and the S1-mobility management entity (MME) interface 715, which is asignaling interface between the RAN nodes 711 and 712 and MMEs 721.

In this embodiment, the CN 720 comprises the MMEs 721, the S-GW 722, thePacket Data Network (PDN) Gateway (P-GW) 723, and a home subscriberserver (HSS) 724. The MMEs 721 may be similar in function to the controlplane of legacy Serving General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) SupportNodes (SGSN). The MMEs 721 may manage mobility aspects in access such asgateway selection and tracking area list management. The HSS 724 maycomprise a database for network users, including subscription-relatedinformation to support the network entities' handling of communicationsessions. The CN 720 may comprise one or several HSSs 724, depending onthe number of mobile subscribers, on the capacity of the equipment, onthe organization of the network, etc. For example, the HSS 724 canprovide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization,naming/addressing resolution, location dependencies, etc.

The S-GW 722 may terminate the S1 interface 713 towards the RAN 710, androutes data packets between the RAN 710 and the CN 720. In addition, theS-GW 722 may be a local mobility anchor point for inter-RAN nodehandovers and also may provide an anchor for inter-3GPP mobility. Otherresponsibilities may include lawful intercept, charging, and some policyenforcement.

The P-GW 723 may terminate an SGi interface toward a PDN. The P-GW 723may route data packets between the EPC network 723 and external networkssuch as a network including the application server 730 (alternativelyreferred to as application function (AF)) via an Internet Protocol (IP)interface 725. Generally, the application server 730 may be an elementoffering applications that use IP bearer resources with the core network(e.g., UMTS Packet Services (PS) domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). Inthis embodiment, the P-GW 723 is shown to be communicatively coupled toan application server 730 via an IP communications interface 725. Theapplication server 730 can also be configured to support one or morecommunication services (e.g., Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP)sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social networkingservices, etc.) for the UEs 701 and 702 via the CN 720.

The P-GW 723 may further be a node for policy enforcement and chargingdata collection. Policy and Charging Enforcement Function (PCRF) 726 isthe policy and charging control element of the CN 720. In a non-roamingscenario, there may be a single PCRF in the Home Public Land MobileNetwork (HPLMN) associated with a UE's Internet Protocol ConnectivityAccess Network (IP-CAN) session. In a roaming scenario with localbreakout of traffic, there may be two PCRFs associated with a UE'sIP-CAN session: a Home PCRF (H-PCRF) within a HPLMN and a Visited PCRF(V-PCRF) within a Visited Public Land Mobile Network (VPLMN). The PCRF726 may be communicatively coupled to the application server 730 via theP-GW 723. The application server 730 may signal the PCRF 726 to indicatea new service flow and select the appropriate Quality of Service (QoS)and charging parameters. The PCRF 726 may provision this rule into aPolicy and Charging Enforcement Function (PCEF) (not shown) with theappropriate traffic flow template (TFT) and QoS class of identifier(QCI), which commences the QoS and charging as specified by theapplication server 730.

FIG. 8 illustrates example components of a device 800 in accordance withsome embodiments. In some embodiments, the device 800 may includeapplication circuitry 802, baseband circuitry 804, Radio Frequency (RF)circuitry 806, front-end module (FEM) circuitry 808, one or moreantennas 810, and power management circuitry (PMC) 812 coupled togetherat least as shown. The components of the illustrated device 800 may beincluded in a UE or a RAN node. In some embodiments, the device 800 mayinclude less elements (e.g., a RAN node may not utilize applicationcircuitry 802, and instead include a processor/controller to process IPdata received from an EPC). In some embodiments, the device 800 mayinclude additional elements such as, for example, memory/storage,display, camera, sensor, or input/output (I/O) interface. In otherembodiments, the components described below may be included in more thanone device (e.g., said circuitries may be separately included in morethan one device for Cloud-RAN (C-RAN) implementations).

The application circuitry 802 may include one or more applicationprocessors. For example, the application circuitry 802 may includecircuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core ormulti-core processors. The processor(s) may include any combination ofgeneral-purpose processors and dedicated processors (e.g., graphicsprocessors, application processors, etc.). The processors may be coupledwith or may include memory/storage and may be configured to executeinstructions stored in the memory/storage to enable various applicationsor operating systems to run on the device 800. In some embodiments,processors of application circuitry 802 may process IP data packetsreceived from an EPC. As discussed herein, the terms memory, storage,storage device, and storage media, or other equivalent terms, may beinterchangeable and may refer to any non-transitory storage or media tostore data and/or instructions thereon, wherein the instructions may beexecuted by another device such as a processor or baseband processor, orlogic devices or circuits, and the scope of the claimed subject matteris not limited in these respects.

The baseband circuitry 804 may include circuitry such as, but notlimited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. Thebaseband circuitry 804 may include one or more baseband processors orcontrol logic to process baseband signals received from a receive signalpath of the RF circuitry 806 and to generate baseband signals for atransmit signal path of the RF circuitry 806. Baseband processingcircuity 804 may interface with the application circuitry 802 forgeneration and processing of the baseband signals and for controllingoperations of the RF circuitry 806. For example, in some embodiments,the baseband circuitry 804 may include a third generation (3G) basebandprocessor 804A, a fourth generation (4G) baseband processor 804B, afifth generation (5G) baseband processor 804C, or other basebandprocessor(s) 804D for other existing generations, generations indevelopment or to be developed in the future (e.g., second generation(2G), sixth generation (6G), etc.). The baseband circuitry 804 (e.g.,one or more of baseband processors 804A-D) may handle various radiocontrol functions that enable communication with one or more radionetworks via the RF circuitry 806. In other embodiments, some or all ofthe functionality of baseband processors 804A-D may be included inmodules stored in the memory 804G and executed via a Central ProcessingUnit (CPU) 804E. The radio control functions may include, but are notlimited to, signal modulation/demodulation, encoding/decoding, radiofrequency shifting, etc. In some embodiments, modulation/demodulationcircuitry of the baseband circuitry 804 may include Fast-FourierTransform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping/demappingfunctionality. In some embodiments, encoding/decoding circuitry of thebaseband circuitry 804 may include convolution, tail-biting convolution,turbo, Viterbi, or Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) encoder/decoderfunctionality. Embodiments of modulation/demodulation andencoder/decoder functionality are not limited to these examples and mayinclude other suitable functionality in other embodiments.

In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 804 may include one or moreaudio digital signal processor(s) (DSP) 804F. The audio DSP(s) 804F maybe include elements for compression/decompression and echo cancellationand may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments.Components of the baseband circuitry may be suitably combined in asingle chip, a single chipset, or disposed on a same circuit board insome embodiments. In some embodiments, some or all of the constituentcomponents of the baseband circuitry 804 and the application circuitry802 may be implemented together such as, for example, on a system on achip (SOC).

In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 804 may provide forcommunication compatible with one or more radio technologies. Forexample, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 804 may supportcommunication with an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network(EUTRAN) or other wireless metropolitan area networks (WMAN), a wirelesslocal area network (WLAN), a wireless personal area network (WPAN).Embodiments in which the baseband circuitry 804 is configured to supportradio communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referredto as multi-mode baseband circuitry.

RF circuitry 806 may enable communication with wireless networks usingmodulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. Invarious embodiments, the RF circuitry 806 may include switches, filters,amplifiers, etc. to facilitate the communication with the wirelessnetwork. RF circuitry 806 may include a receive signal path which mayinclude circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from the FEMcircuitry 808 and provide baseband signals to the baseband circuitry804. RF circuitry 806 may also include a transmit signal path which mayinclude circuitry to up-convert baseband signals provided by thebaseband circuitry 804 and provide RF output signals to the FEMcircuitry 808 for transmission.

In some embodiments, the receive signal path of the RF circuitry 806 mayinclude mixer circuitry 806 a, amplifier circuitry 806 b and filtercircuitry 806 c. In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of the RFcircuitry 806 may include filter circuitry 806 c and mixer circuitry 806a. RF circuitry 806 may also include synthesizer circuitry 806 d forsynthesizing a frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 806 a of thereceive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments,the mixer circuitry 806 a of the receive signal path may be configuredto down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 808 based onthe synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuitry 806 d. Theamplifier circuitry 806 b may be configured to amplify thedown-converted signals and the filter circuitry 806 c may be a low-passfilter (LPF) or band-pass filter (BPF) configured to remove unwantedsignals from the down-converted signals to generate output basebandsignals. Output baseband signals may be provided to the basebandcircuitry 804 for further processing. In some embodiments, the outputbaseband signals may be zero-frequency baseband signals, although thisis not a requirement. In some embodiments, mixer circuitry 806 a of thereceive signal path may comprise passive mixers, although the scope ofthe embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 806 a of the transmit signalpath may be configured to up-convert input baseband signals based on thesynthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuitry 806 d togenerate RF output signals for the FEM circuitry 808. The basebandsignals may be provided by the baseband circuitry 804 and may befiltered by filter circuitry 806 c.

In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 806 a of the receive signalpath and the mixer circuitry 806 a of the transmit signal path mayinclude two or more mixers and may be arranged for quadraturedownconversion and upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, themixer circuitry 806 a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry806 a of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and maybe arranged for image rejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In someembodiments, the mixer circuitry 806 a of the receive signal path andthe mixer circuitry 806 a may be arranged for direct downconversion anddirect upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixercircuitry 806 a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 806 aof the transmit signal path may be configured for super-heterodyneoperation.

In some embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input basebandsignals may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of theembodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternateembodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signalsmay be digital baseband signals. In these alternate embodiments, the RFcircuitry 806 may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) anddigital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry and the baseband circuitry804 may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with the RFcircuitry 806.

In some dual-mode embodiments, a separate radio IC circuitry may beprovided for processing signals for each spectrum, although the scope ofthe embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some embodiments, thesynthesizer circuitry 806 d may be a fractional-N synthesizer or afractional N/N+1 synthesizer, although the scope of the embodiments isnot limited in this respect as other types of frequency synthesizers maybe suitable. For example, synthesizer circuitry 806 d may be adelta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizercomprising a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider.

The synthesizer circuitry 806 d may be configured to synthesize anoutput frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 806 a of the RFcircuitry 806 based on a frequency input and a divider control input. Insome embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 806 d may be a fractionalN/N+1 synthesizer.

In some embodiments, frequency input may be provided by avoltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), although that is not a requirement.Divider control input may be provided by either the baseband circuitry804 or the applications processor 802 depending on the desired outputfrequency. In some embodiments, a divider control input (e.g., N) may bedetermined from a look-up table based on a channel indicated by theapplications processor 802.

Synthesizer circuitry 806 d of the RF circuitry 806 may include adivider, a delay-locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer and a phaseaccumulator. In some embodiments, the divider may be a dual modulusdivider (DMD) and the phase accumulator may be a digital phaseaccumulator (DPA). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured todivide the input signal by either N or N+1 (e.g., based on a carry out)to provide a fractional division ratio. In some example embodiments, theDLL may include a set of cascaded, tunable, delay elements, a phasedetector, a charge pump and a D-type flip-flop. In these embodiments,the delay elements may be configured to break a VCO period up into Ndequal packets of phase, where Nd is the number of delay elements in thedelay line. In this way, the DLL provides negative feedback to helpensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle.

In some embodiments, synthesizer circuitry 806 d may be configured togenerate a carrier frequency as the output frequency, while in otherembodiments, the output frequency may be a multiple of the carrierfrequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrierfrequency) and used in conjunction with quadrature generator and dividercircuitry to generate multiple signals at the carrier frequency withmultiple different phases with respect to each other. In someembodiments, the output frequency may be a LO frequency (fLO). In someembodiments, the RF circuitry 806 may include an IQ/polar converter.

FEM circuitry 808 may include a receive signal path which may includecircuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from one or moreantennas 810, amplify the received signals and provide the amplifiedversions of the received signals to the RF circuitry 806 for furtherprocessing. FEM circuitry 808 may also include a transmit signal pathwhich may include circuitry configured to amplify signals fortransmission provided by the RF circuitry 806 for transmission by one ormore of the one or more antennas 810. In various embodiments, theamplification through the transmit or receive signal paths may be donesolely in the RF circuitry 806, solely in the FEM 808, or in both the RFcircuitry 806 and the FEM 808.

In some embodiments, the FEM circuitry 808 may include a TX/RX switch toswitch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The FEMcircuitry may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path.The receive signal path of the FEM circuitry may include an LNA toamplify received RF signals and provide the amplified received RFsignals as an output (e.g., to the RF circuitry 806). The transmitsignal path of the FEM circuitry 808 may include a power amplifier (PA)to amplify input RF signals (e.g., provided by RF circuitry 806), andone or more filters to generate RF signals for subsequent transmission(e.g., by one or more of the one or more antennas 810).

In some embodiments, the PMC 812 may manage power provided to thebaseband circuitry 804. In particular, the PMC 812 may controlpower-source selection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-to-DCconversion. The PMC 812 may often be included when the device 800 iscapable of being powered by a battery, for example, when the device isincluded in a UE. The PMC 812 may increase the power conversionefficiency while providing desirable implementation size and heatdissipation characteristics.

While FIG. 8 shows the PMC 812 coupled only with the baseband circuitry804. However, in other embodiments, the PMC 812 may be additionally oralternatively coupled with, and perform similar power managementoperations for, other components such as, but not limited to,application circuitry 802, RF circuitry 806, or FEM 808.

In some embodiments, the PMC 812 may control, or otherwise be part of,various power saving mechanisms of the device 800. For example, if thedevice 800 is in an RRC Connected state, where it is still connected tothe RAN node as it expects to receive traffic shortly, then it may entera state known as Discontinuous Reception Mode (DRX) after a period ofinactivity. During this state, the device 800 may power down for briefintervals of time and thus save power.

If there is no data traffic activity for an extended period of time,then the device 800 may transition off to an RRC Idle state, where itdisconnects from the network and does not perform operations such aschannel quality feedback, handover, etc. The device 800 goes into a verylow power state and it performs paging where again it periodically wakesup to listen to the network and then powers down again. The device 800may not receive data in this state, in order to receive data, it musttransition back to RRC Connected state.

An additional power saving mode may allow a device to be unavailable tothe network for periods longer than a paging interval (ranging fromseconds to a few hours). During this time, the device is totallyunreachable to the network and may power down completely. Any data sentduring this time incurs a large delay and it is assumed the delay isacceptable.

Processors of the application circuitry 802 and processors of thebaseband circuitry 804 may be used to execute elements of one or moreinstances of a protocol stack. For example, processors of the basebandcircuitry 804, alone or in combination, may be used execute Layer 3,Layer 2, or Layer 1 functionality, while processors of the applicationcircuitry 804 may utilize data (e.g., packet data) received from theselayers and further execute Layer 4 functionality (e.g., transmissioncommunication protocol (TCP) and user datagram protocol (UDP) layers).As referred to herein, Layer 3 may comprise a radio resource control(RRC) layer, described in further detail below. As referred to herein,Layer 2 may comprise a medium access control (MAC) layer, a radio linkcontrol (RLC) layer, and a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP)layer, described in further detail below. As referred to herein, Layer 1may comprise a physical (PHY) layer of a UE/RAN node, described infurther detail below.

FIG. 9 illustrates example interfaces of baseband circuitry inaccordance with some embodiments. As discussed above, the basebandcircuitry 804 of FIG. 8 may comprise processors 804A-804E and a memory804G utilized by said processors. Each of the processors 804A-804E mayinclude a memory interface, 904A-904E, respectively, to send/receivedata to/from the memory 804G.

The baseband circuitry 804 may further include one or more interfaces tocommunicatively couple to other circuitries/devices, such as a memoryinterface 912 (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from memoryexternal to the baseband circuitry 804), an application circuitryinterface 914 (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from theapplication circuitry 802 of FIG. 8), an RF circuitry interface 916(e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from RF circuitry 806 ofFIG. 8), a wireless hardware connectivity interface 918 (e.g., aninterface to send/receive data to/from Near Field Communication (NFC)components, Bluetooth® components (e.g., Bluetooth® Low Energy), Wi-Fi®components, and other communication components), and a power managementinterface 920 (e.g., an interface to send/receive power or controlsignals to/from the PMC 812.

Although the claimed subject matter has been described with a certaindegree of particularity, it should be recognized that elements thereofmay be altered by persons skilled in the art without departing from thespirit and/or scope of claimed subject matter. It is believed that thesubject matter pertaining to simultaneous HARQ-ACK feedback and uplinktransmission without dynamic grant and many of its attendant utilitieswill be understood by the forgoing description, and it will be apparentthat various changes may be made in the form, construction and/orarrangement of the components thereof without departing from the scopeand/or spirit of the claimed subject matter or without sacrificing allof its material advantages, the form herein before described beingmerely an explanatory embodiment thereof, and/or further withoutproviding substantial change thereto. It is the intention of the claimsto encompass and/or include such changes.

1. (canceled)
 2. An apparatus of a user equipment (UE), comprising: oneor more baseband processors to process downlink control information(DCI) received from a next generation NodeB (gNB) to schedule physicaluplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission without grant, wherein theDCI includes a downlink assignment index (DAI) that indicates a numberof feedback bits for a hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement(HARQ-ACK); and a memory to store the DAI.
 3. The apparatus of claim 2,wherein the DAI for a first transmission comprises 1 bit for asemi-static HARQ-ACK codebook.
 4. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein theDAI for a first transmission comprises 2 bits for a dynamic HARQ-ACKcodebook.
 5. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the DAI for a secondtransmission comprises 2 bits for a dynamic HARQ-ACK codebook with twoHARQ-ACK sub-codebooks.
 6. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the DAI fora second transmission comprises 0 bits.
 7. An apparatus of a New Radio(NR) NodeB (gNB), comprising: one or more baseband processors togenerate downlink control information (DCI) for a user equipment (UE) toschedule physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission withoutgrant, wherein the DCI includes a downlink assignment index (DAI) thatindicates a number of feedback bits for a hybrid automatic repeatrequest-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK); and a memory to store the DAI. 8.The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the DAI for a first transmissioncomprises 1 bit for a semi-static HARQ-ACK codebook.
 9. The apparatus ofclaim 7, wherein the DAI for a first transmission comprises 2 bits for adynamic HARQ-ACK codebook.
 10. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the DAIfor a second transmission comprises 2 bits for a dynamic HARQ-ACKcodebook with two HARQ-ACK sub-codebooks.
 11. The apparatus of claim 7,wherein the DAI for a second transmission comprises 0 bits.
 12. One ormore non-transitory machine readable media having instructions storedthereon that, when executed by an apparatus of a user equipment (UE),result in: processing downlink control information (DCI) received from anext generation NodeB (gNB) to schedule physical uplink shared channel(PUSCH) transmission without grant, wherein the DCI includes a downlinkassignment index (DAI) that indicates a number of feedback bits for ahybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK); andconfiguring HARQ-ACK feedback according to the DAI.
 13. The one or morenon-transitory machine readable media of claim 12, wherein the DAI for afirst transmission comprises 1 bit for a semi-static HARQ-ACK codebook.14. The one or more non-transitory machine readable media of claim 12,wherein the DAI for a first transmission comprises 2 bits for a dynamicHARQ-ACK codebook.
 15. The one or more non-transitory machine readablemedia of claim 12, wherein the DAI for a second transmission comprises 2bits for a dynamic HARQ-ACK codebook with two HARQ-ACK sub-codebooks.16. The one or more non-transitory machine readable media of claim 12,wherein the DAI for a second transmission comprises 0 bits.
 17. One ormore non-transitory machine readable media having instructions storedthereon that, when executed by an apparatus of a New Radio (NR) NodeB(gNB), result in: generating downlink control information (DCI) for auser equipment (UE) to schedule physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH)transmission without grant, wherein the DCI includes a downlinkassignment index (DAI) that indicates a number of feedback bits for ahybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK); andconfiguring HARQ-ACK feedback according to the DAI.
 18. The one or morenon-transitory machine readable media of claim 17, wherein the DAI for afirst transmission comprises 1 bit for a semi-static HARQ-ACK codebook.19. The one or more non-transitory machine readable media of claim 17,wherein the DAI for a first transmission comprises 2 bits for a dynamicHARQ-ACK codebook.
 20. The one or more non-transitory machine readablemedia of claim 17, wherein the DAI for a second transmission comprises 2bits for a dynamic HARQ-ACK codebook with two HARQ-ACK sub-codebooks.21. The one or more non-transitory machine readable media of claim 16,wherein the DAI for a second transmission comprises 0 bits.